


unstable

by violetinfidel



Series: one word prompts [1]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords
Genre: anyway yea this is just a tiny little snippet of shadow's backstory and current life, im just trying to get my writing juices flowing lmao, so i pick a one word prompt and i write every day, this will be made into a series, tiny tiny 600 word thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-15
Updated: 2018-05-15
Packaged: 2019-05-07 13:53:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14672454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/violetinfidel/pseuds/violetinfidel





	unstable

It took him a long time to really perfect his magic. It was months, almost two full years, before he could really reliably cast at the same caliber as his senior Yiga, and even then sometimes he struggled to keep things under control when performing anything significant.

It took a lot of practice, a lot of dedication, and above all a lot of patience with the people that agreed to help him. And, of course, because it’s the Yiga, the few who agreed to help him didn't do so out of the kindness of their hearts- it always took  _ something _ , a little favor, a little bribery, to get them to even give him the time of day. And he worked at it as diligently as he knew how to, because if he wasn't good at anything else then he wanted to be good at  _ this _ , and he needed to have something going for him or he’d be left for the wolves someday.

Eventually, after a grueling eventually, he learned, and he got good, and he became one of the strongest casters in the Clan, and in a twisted sort of way he even made a couple of friends in the people who helped him. 

Later, the magic came in very very good use, protecting himself from the very people who had given it to him in the first place. It was his saving grace, the only thing that kept him alive, against nature and against  _ them _ .

But despite all his practice, all his experience, all his  _ caution _ , the problem is with Malice, it isn't particularly stable. It's raw power, after all, raw power and distilled evil, and that sort of thing isn't ever very safe, regardless of the skill of the wielder. Most of the time it's relatively docile, allows itself to be shaped and molded and dispensed at will, cooperates nicely with its user. The one thing that offsets its balance, its harmony, is the one thing that often offsets power- emotion.

And, unfortunately for Shadow, he isn't the most emotionally stable person, and no amount of magic can help that.

He gets angry and his palms itch, crackle with the beginnings of magic, or he’s upset and he can feel the full-body prickling, the heavy sludgy feeling that precedes casting, and it's all he can do to get himself away from anything that he could possibly damage, because he knows that if he stays upset and confronts the problem then someone is going to get hurt. 

It's easiest in the heat of battle, when he can take the anger and the frustration and make it useful, hurt things that  _ should _ be hurt, and that's when his volatility is at its most constructive. He can sling the magic as much as he wants to, be as destructive and as violent as he needs to be, and as long as he maintains even a vague semblance of being a decent human being, it's not a problem.

Usually.

On rare, rare occasions, sometimes he forgets himself, forgets that there are people fighting alongside him, and he gets a little too careless with the magic, releases huge bursts of power meant to irradiate everything in its way, and he accidentally hurts the people he’s supposed to be helping.

And then there’s not much he can do except run to them and do as much as he can to heal them with whatever magic he’s got left in him, and without fail it ends with someone yelling and someone crying and Shadow regretting every single thing he’s ever done.


End file.
